Potential Assessment and Pathways for Realizing the Value of Ecological Products in Plateau Lake Basins: A Case Study of Nine Plateau Lakes in Yunnan Province

Systematic assessment of the potential for realizing the value of ecological products in plateau lake basins, together with the identification of differentiated pathways, is essential for addressing structural tensions between ecological protection and regional development and for improving the precision of value-realization practices. Taking the nine major plateau lake basins in Yunnan Province as the study area, this study constructs a comprehensive indicator system covering three dimensions: supply potential, transformation conditions, and market demand. The k-means clustering method is then applied to classify basin types and identify dominant value-realization pathways. The results indicate that: (1) the VPPI ranges from 0.1594 to 0.7679, with the highest value in Dianchi Lake Basin and the lowest in Chenghai Lake Basin; the high-, medium-, and low-potential zones have mean VPPI values of 0.6928, 0.4033, and 0.2106, respectively; (2) four distinct types are identified, namely the regulatory service trading type, cultural tourism empowerment type, characteristic provisioning product premium type, and protection-priority reserve type; and (3) low-potential basins are mainly constrained by weak market demand, with a mean market-demand contribution of only 0.0386. These findings provide quantitative decision support for context-specific pathway design in plateau lake basins.